Junior Research Fellow

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Marta Szulkin

Dr. Marta Szulkin

Details

Name: Dr. Marta Szulkin
Position: Junior Research Fellow
Email: marta.szulkin@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Autobiography

I studied biology at the University of Warsaw for an MSc in Biology, and came to Oxford in 2002 for an MSc in Integrated Biosciences. I started a DPhil at the Edward Grey Institute in October 2004, supervised by Ben Sheldon. My thesis (defended in January 2008) investigated inbreeding and its avoidance in the great tit (Parus major), and was based on extensive dataset analyses of great tit breeding records and field work carried out in Wytham Woods. I have been appointed as Fellow by Examination in Biology at Magdalen College in October 2007, where I am further developing my interests in evolutionary biology.

Research Activities

My research draws from the fields of evolutionary biology, ecology, population and conservation genetics. I have a long-standing interest in understanding how additive and non-additive gene action shapes the phenotype, and how gene flow influences the importance of additive and non-additive effects at the individual and population level. I am also interested in the interplay between genetic and environmental factors as major drivers of population resilience to current changes in climate and habitat availability.

I am currently focusing on wild populations of great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus as model systems (but I am open to collaborations on a wide range of taxa!).

My present and future investigations include the following:

I. Non-additive genetic effects

  • Inbreeding and inbreeding depression across taxa and population contexts
  • Heterozygosity-fitness correlations (with Patrice David and Nicolas Bierne, CNRS Montpellier / Sete)

II. Dispersal

  • Gene flow: dispersal and population genetic structuring
  • Cross-comparisons of inbreeding and dispersal relationships (with Arie van Noordwijk, NIOO-KNAW Heteren)
  • Covariation in dispersal propensity and behaviour

III. Animals in a changing world

  • Factors underlying population resilience to environmental and climate change

Selected Recent Papers

Szulkin, M. & David, P. 2011. Negative Heterozygosity-fitness correlations observed with microsatellites located in functional areas of the genome. Molecular Ecology (in press).

Szulkin M., Bierne, N. & David, P. 2010. Heterozygosity-Fitness Correlations: a time for reappraisal. Evolution 64, 1202-1217 | Read abstract/paper

Szulkin M., Zelazowski P., Nicholson G. & Sheldon B.C. 2009. Inbreeding avoidance under different null models of random mating in the great tit. Journal of Animal Ecology 78, 778 - 788| Read abstract/paper online

Szulkin, M. & Sheldon, B.C. 2008. Correlates of the occurrence of inbreeding in a wild bird population. Behavioral Ecology 19: 1200-1207. | Read abstract/paper online

Szulkin, M. & Sheldon, B.C. 2008. Dispersal as a means of inbreeding avoidance in a wild bird population. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 275, 703-711

Szulkin, M. & Sheldon, B.C. 2007. The environmental dependence of inbreeding depression in a wild bird population. PLoS One 2, e1027 1-7. | Read abstract/paper online

Szulkin, M., Garant, D., McCleery, R.H. & Sheldon, B.C. 2007. Inbreeding depression along a life-history continuum in the Great tit. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 20, 1531-1543. | Read abstract/paper online

Szulkin, M. & Sheldon, B.C. 2006. Inbreeding: When parents transmit more than genes. Current Biology 16, 810-812. | Read abstract/paper online

Szulkin, M., Dawidowicz, P., Dodson, S.I. 2006. Behavioural uniformity as a response to cues of predation risk. Animal Behaviour. 71, 1013-1019. | Read abstract/paper online

Download complete list of publications in PDF format